BBC news 2008-07-31 加文本

BBC News with Roy Lamar.

The Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced that he will not stand for re-election as leader of his party in September, and will step down when a successor is chosen. Mr. Olmert, who’s under investigation for alleged corruption has denied any wrongdoing, says he wants to defend himself out of the public eye.

“After the party chooses a new chairman, I will resign my post as prime minister in order to enable the elected chairman to quickly and efficiently form a new government. I believe there is a broad public basis for such a government, and that it will be formed within a short time.”

Mr. Olmert who’s been in power for just over two years defended his record in office and said peace with the Palestinians and the Syrians has never been so close. The senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat has said they will continue trying to reach a peace agreement with Israel this year despite Ehud Olmert’s impending resignation. Observers have suggested that the fallout from Mr. Olmert’s trouble is likely to hinder the progress. Mr. Erekat was speaking in Washington after talks with the Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He said Palestinians wanted to make peace with all Israelis, not one party or one person.

“We were told by Mr. Livni and by Mr. Olmert before, that we are gonna stay the course and continue working and negotiations because they told us that the, this will not affect the negotiations. Now we have to wait and see, it’s an internal Israeli matter as far as we’re concerned, but at the end of the day,as Palestinians, we wanna make peace with all Israelis, not with this party or that person.”

An attempt by Turkish chief prosecutor to have the governing AK Party banned has failed in the constitutional court. The chief prosecutor had accused the AK Party of undermining Turkey’s secular constitution by becoming a focus of pro-Islamist activity. The European Union has welcomed the ruling. Sarah Rainsford reports from Istanbul.

This is a narrow escape for Turkey’s governing party. Six judges wanted to close it down, just one vote short of the number required by the constitution. Instead, the party will lose millions of dollars in state funding. The court chairman said the AKP should understand that as a very serious warning. But the party has always denied the charge that it is a threat to the secular system in Turkey. It sees this ruling as vindication.

The family of the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic should have a travel ban lifted to allow them to visit him in The Hague where he’s been held by the UN war crimes tribunal. Mr. Karadzic’s wife, daughter and son had their identity cards returned by the authorities. The cards were confiscated because the family was suspected of helping Mr. Karadzic in hiding. The family, the former Bosnian Serb leader is to make his first appearance before the tribunal tomorrow.

World News from the BBC.

The United Nations Security Council has voted unanimously to end the UN mission monitoring the disputed border between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The force was established eight years ago, following the end of a border war that left 100,000 people dead. From New York, Laura Trevelyan.

The United Nations withdrew virtually all of its peacekeeping force from the disputed border area between Ethiopia and Eritrea back in February. So by voting to end the mission, the UN Security Council is formally recognizing the reality on the ground. Since 2000, when Ethiopia and Eritrea ended their two-and-a-half-year war, the 1,700 UN troops have been trying to maintain a fragile peace along the volatile border between the two countries. (Www.hxen.net)

Bangladesh has set up a Truth and Accountability Commission to tackle corruption. The commission’s members were offered partial amnesties in return for information about corrupt deals. Anyone serving less than two years in jail for corruption will be shown leniency by the commission if they confess and return any illegal earnings.

A multibillion dollar oil deal between China and Nigel has been denounced by unions and transparency campaigners. Civil rights groups in Nigel are calling for a parliamentary investigation into the five-billion-dollar agreement, and an examination of how the funds resulted from the deal will be spent. China's state oil company was given oil exploration rights in Nigel in June.

Three pieces of clothing, said to have belonged to Britain’s longest reigning monarch---Queen Victoria, have been sold at auction for nearly 30,000 dollars. The auctioneer said the three items, a pair of bloomers, a chemise and a night dress accorded with the image of the queen being a woman of quite small stature and very wide girth. The bloomers had a waist of a meter and a quarter, the chemise had a one-and-two-thirds-meter bust.